Page:God and His Book.djvu/53

Rh It is clear to the meanest capacity that the Ghost wrote in a language which was no language, but in an indefinite jargon of which the unlearned know nothing, and which no two learned human beings translate the same way. And yet this Scripture is "the very word of very God," and we have to believe in it under the penalty of being damned. For this and all his other tender mercies, glory be to God in the highest!

All that is sweet and beautiful and elevating in life is due to Christianity. Every preacher whines that, and every baby knows it. But for the creed of the manger, our deportment would be that of bears and our morals those of goats—vestality would be nowhere and bestiality everywhere: we should hunt in vain over all the shores of the world for one footprint of Rhea; but, on the world's every couch, we could find Priapus. Tarquin, from his throne, could scan the globe from horizon to horizon, and see Phrynne amid red wine and lawless orgie, and find Lucretia nowhere but in the grave. But blessed be God that he has dowered us with a huge bundle of inspired contradictions which has purified the world.

We are, of course, stiff necked; we have gone away backward, and have all deserved "God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come." But a really effective gospel-grinder, standing up on his hind-legs in a ranting-box well-varnished, and telling us forever and forever how Jehovah kicked Adam out of Paradise for eating an apple, and how Jehovah's son, who was at the same time Jehovah's self, got nailed to a stick, is sufficient to keep us pure and holy and divorced from the world, the flesh, and the devil. If we only genuflect properly and howl "Amen," one professional gospel-grinder will be sufficient to "save" about 700 of us from being pickled in brimstone, and from being gnawed by a worm of considerable length, and which no vermin-powder will destroy.

If you are determined to believe in the Scriptures, leave their history and all inquiries as to how they originated and how they have been preserved, severely alone. Faith can flourish and triumph only where Ignorance is cultivated as a virtue. Clothe yourself with prejudice as with a garment, and array yourself in bigotry as with